The authors develop methodologies for the automatic selection of image features to be used to visually control the relative position and orientation (pose) between the end-effector of an eye-in-hand robot and a workpiece. A resolved motion rate control scheme is used to update the robot's pose based on the position of three features in the camera's image. The selection of these three features depends on a blend of image recognition and control criteria. The image recognition criteria include feature robustness, completeness, cost of feature extraction, and feature uniqueness. The control criteria include system observability, controllability, and sensitivity. A weighted criteria function is used to select the combination of image features that provides the best control of the end-effector of a general six-degrees-of-freedom manipulator. Both computer simulations and laboratory experiments on a PUMA robot arm were conducted to verify the performance of the feature-selection criteria